Domina Powers Blackout?

[Periculi]

How do the powers get blacked out in Eridani? I noticed that you can't use the full set of domina invokes in that system. Is it only for Eridani? Is there a way to set a system to not allow Domina invokes?

Also there seems to be a level limitation in place. I can't find anywhere in the code that specifies this, so is it inaccessible?

[Fatboy]

There is a device limitation.

[Periculi]

Where, Exactly?

No offense meant, Fatboy, but I read through every line of both the Domina.xml, and SistersofDomina.xml, with an understanding of the code I am looking at, and saw no mention of any sort of limitations for either system or system level, or devices, items, ships, credits, or anything like that and what you are saying looks like a guess at best.

The Domina powers use a level of their own and an xp rating- all the data that is involved is stored in a station (stDomina) that never gets added to any system. The station records the xp gained from donations to the sisters, which is valued based on a static data table included in the station element type for the sisters. The only other stored data involves the time of the invoke- so a limit is added to prevent any quick reuse of the powers, and this is also stored on stDomina.

The sisters have some net worth calculations to adjust your tithe rate, but no other qualifications regarding the playership- that is the only time that devices are affecting the outcome.

There is no device limitation. As far as I can tell, no penalty is acquired from equipment.

If you get up to Domina experience level 6 with full access to the powers, and go back to Starton Eridani, your invokable powers are limited to Sustain. There is a system level limitation and, it would appear, a special limitation in Eridani above and beyond this.

You can circumvent the invoke limitations by adjusting the time delay, but even when cheated in this fashion low level systems and Eridani in particular still impose a limit to the invokes possible in those systems.

How this limitation is imposed is what I am after here. I know it is there, and I know a little bit about how it functions- but I don't see anywhere in the xml that it can be accessed and adjusted.

So I am wondering if George has a way that we can alter this built in to the game but not mentioned or revealed in the xml. I think it would be fun to have systems where Oracus has more influence than Domina, and saps the powers you can use in that system.



Correction- it seems you can use more than Sustain in Eridani- so it looks like the limitations are based on the system level.

In a level 1 system, level 1 and 2 powers appear to be available. In a level 2 system the powers jump up a few more levels. (sysLevel x 2?)

Is there a way to block the domina powers, short of a brute force method such as draining the player level to 0 in a given system or altering the timeLastInvoke records?

[Betelgeuse]

Is there a way to block the domina powers, short of a brute force method such as draining the player level to 0 in a given system or altering the timeLastInvoke records?

hmm it wouldn't work on separately modded powers but you could edit the powers to check a system attribute or something similar. (like only invoke in systems with sisters)

[Arisaya]

it seems this works similarily to the changes to the shield attributes. Shield generator's damage adjacency (how much damage they take) is now based on their item level (editable by an hp bonus for certain damage types). Unfortunatly that too seems to be non-present in the .xml code...

[Periculi]

hmm it wouldn't work on separately modded powers but you could edit the powers to check a system attribute or something similar. (like only invoke in systems with sisters)

Actually I was thinking of editing a system or even an event trigger to simply swap the player's existing score for a nil to remove all the powers at once without changing any of the Domina powers (no override needed). Since I know the name and location of the data, changing it is easy.

But you have a good idea there to edit the powers to check against a system attribute- that would be a very effective method and be easy to mod new effects to.

I don't know how I feel about only allowing invokes in systems with sisters- but perhaps a bonus could be applied (faster regen on lower level powers) to those systems, if the player has an excellent sistersAttitude score, or perhaps some Sisters missions could be devised to improve a new stat with them to add this bonus in.




Wolfy, don't you mean damage adjustment? Adjacency.

I wonder sometimes why George seems to have a policy of making the inner workings of transcendence secret. What would be the harm in letting us know the level bonuses for shields and other types of things?

[Arisaya]

oh... adjustment... I know what adjacency is, but in my experience adj. means adjacency... So I thought it was either a typo or some hidden meaning behind it.

maybe he's too busy to post it?

[Fatboy]

Sorry, The device limitation is in Eridani.xml. But I can't see how that would block it though

[Arisaya]

Sorry, The device limitation is in Eridani.xml. But I can't see how that would block it though

really? how interesting... I need to go see this...

[Periculi]

You mean this:

Code: Select all

		<Events>
			<OnCreate>
				(block Nil
					; Devices greater than level III are not for sale in Eridani
					(enum (sysFindObject Nil "TF +populated;") theObj
						(enum (objGetItems theObj "dU") theItem
							(if (and (gr (itmGetLevel theItem) 3) (objGetSellPrice theObj theItem))
								(objRemoveItem theObj theItem)
								)
							)
						)
					)
			</OnCreate>
		</Events>

"Devices greater than level III are not for sale in Eridani" is just preventing the sale of devices, not restricting Domina powers in regards to them. It does not block the Domina powers.

[george moromisato]

How do the powers get blacked out in Eridani? I noticed that you can't use the full set of domina invokes in that system. Is it only for Eridani? Is there a way to set a system to not allow Domina invokes?

Also there seems to be a level limitation in place. I can't find anywhere in the code that specifies this, so is it inaccessible?

I can't quite reproduce the behavior you see.

The code to show Domina powers is in the function domShowPower (in Domina.xm). As you can see, it is based on your Domina level and on whether or not you have used one of the powers recently (by level).

If you wanted to add extra limitations, you could override the powers with different rules.

[Periculi]

That's bizarre. I used a script that gave me Domina xp and that sets the timers to 1 so that I can use the powers more often.

No matter if I have used a power or not, nothing past Strengthen shows up in Eridani- and the behavior is odd- it takes a few times of trying Sustain for sustain to work, even though I reset the timer on it between each attempt. Then after several sustains have fired, two more powers show up (and I am usually at about 1000+ xp and level 4 by then)

Here's the code:

Code: Select all

		<Invoke>

			(block (xp level)
			(domGainXP 250)
			(setq xp (typGetGlobalData &stDomina; "xp"))
			(setq level (typGetGlobalData &stDomina; "level"))
			(objSendMessage gPlayership nil (cat "You have " xp " xp and are level " level))

			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime1" 1)
			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime2" 1)
			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime3" 1)
			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime4" 1)
			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime5" 1)
			(typSetGlobalData &stDomina; "lastInvokeTime6" 1)
				
				)

		</Invoke>

I would expect that after invoking this item 20 or 25 times that all the options would show up. Looking at the Domina code, it seems like it should work fine- add the xp, get the higher level, reset the time check to 1- and it does work, except in the first few systems where there seems to be a hard cap.

Having you tell me there isn't one makes the behavior even more mysterious.

Did I miss something? I really thought it was just xp and time that constrained the powers- all that is being dealt with in domShowPower is xp and level. (domGainXP 250) should be a simple way to add xp, and raises the level in that function.

The first time this script is invoked, I jump to level 2. On entering ths game, immediately invoking the script and then (I)nvoking the domina panel, all that shows is Sustain- which returns the message "Do not rely on my powers, child".

Invoke the cheat script another time, Invoke Domina powers again- same message.

Only after three or four times of adding xp does Sustain finally work. By then I am level 4- and can make use of Heal and Strengthen. No matter how many times I invoke the xp gain script from there, no other powers will appear in the panel in Eridani system. Travel to a level 2 system and all the powers are available up to level 4. Go higher still and finally all the powers show up.

[Periculi]

Changing the xp value sent to 5000 per cheat invoke doesn't change the result:


As you can see, after 3 invokes of the item to add xp my score is 15000 and level 6. Opening the invoke panel, I get Sustain only. And it gives the message: 'do not rely on my powers, child'.


In further tests, sustain wouldn't trigger for 20 or more times- I altered the xp gain to prevent running over 5000, and used a slower build up to see if spending some time at level 1 would effect things in a positive manner.

In these few experiments no other options EVER showed up, although I was able to repeatedly trigger sustain. After getting to level 6 still no other powers ever showed up in Eridani.

So whatever is happening is not consistent game to game- in some games, I can get level 2 powers to invoke in Eridani in others they don't show up at all. Some games I can invoke sustain after a few failures, other games it takes dozens of attempts or more to finally get sustain to trigger.

As you can see from the code, I am directly altering the only variables I could find related to Domina powers- and the powers are acting much differently for me than expected.

Oh, well in still further testing I started in a higher level- and the powers are acting the same way. I tried setting the lastTimeInvoke to nil to see if it had to do with the time- no change. Still not getting access to many powers even when my Domina xp is 4000+ and level is 6. What is going on here?